In 1785, Mary Wollstonecraft’s life seemed at its lowest ebb. Her dearest friend, Fanny Blood, had died in Portugal after a long illness, and the school they had jointly established in Newington Green was drowning in debt and disappointment. With few prospects and nowhere to go, she began brooding over the fate of women in English society, a society that had sacrificed Fanny in a loveless marriage and now threatened to thwart her own prospects for happiness. Encouraged by a friend, she recorded these thoughts in a fiery dissertation that offered a prelude of works to come,
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters(1787). The topical manuscript quickly passed into Samuel Johnson’s hands, who not only offered to buy it, but encouraged her to write more in the same vein. With such a…
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Citation: Grasso, Joshua. "Mary, A Fiction". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 November 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3723, accessed 21 November 2024.]
